Hazel Louise Wyche

Wednesday

Apr 23, 2014 at 8:00 AM

Funeral services for Hazel Louise Wyche are scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday, April 24, 2014, at the First Baptist Church of Ringling with the Rev. Timothy Ball officiating. Interment will follow at Ringling Memorial Cemetery of Ringling. Services are under the care and direction of Alexander Funeral Home of Ringling.

Hazel Louise (Porter) Dunford-Wyche was born Feb. 25, 1922, to John Quincy Porter Sr. and Winnie Melinda (Bonifield) Porter at their family home between Center Point and Union Hill. She passed from this life Monday, April 21, 2014, at Ringling.

Hazel was the youngest of seven children. She attended grade school at Union Hill and later graduated from Ringling High School as one of three valedictorians. During her high school years, she spent most of her time with her sister and brother-in–law, Audie and Virgil Lambeth and their two daughters who operated a Phillips 66 station and grocery store across from the high school. (The present location of the Church of Christ.)

On Dec. 5, 1941, two days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, she and Melvin Siglar Dunford were married in Waurika. Hazel followed him to various army bases in Arkansas and Louisiana. She always found a job in a nearby town as well as a room with a family and stayed close by him.

Soon the war sent him to Europe and Hazel moved to Dallas to live with her niece and her husband, Virgie and Joyal Dunford.

Applying for a job at an ammunition’s plant, she was hired because of her beautiful penmanship, something she always took great pride in.

When Melvin returned from the war, they made their home in Ringling.

Soon he began a carpentry career and she was a stay at home mom until 1958 when A.C. Swinney hired her to work at the First National Bank. Hazel worked there until her retirement in 1987.

At the time of her death, she held the longest membership of any surviving member of the First Baptist Church. Hazel loved her church and her Sunday School class. For many years Hazel served as church treasurer. She had a gift for bookkeeping and she enjoyed it.

Hazel married Robert Wyche April 25, 1995, in Las Vegas, and they shared many happy years driving the countryside and looking over the pastures of Calvin and the boys.

She would call many times to report a calf out or anything that looked strange. Robert preceded her in death Nov. 25, 2013.

Beyond everything else, she loved her family and adored her grandsons and their wives. Each new great-grandchild was such a blessing.

In addition to her husband, Robert Earl Wyche, Hazel was preceded in death by her first husband, Melvin who preceded her on Feb. 28, 1978; her parents, John and Winnie Porter; brothers and sisters-in-law, Kimbell and Marie Porter, Wilfred and Letrice Porter and Guy and Ruby Porter; sisters and brothers-in-law, Addie and Marvin Russel and Audie and Virgil Lambeth; sister-in-law, Joyce Porter; and special nieces and husbands, Betty and Doyal Dickey and Virgie and Joyal Dunford.

She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Nita and Calvin Wade; grandsons and wives, Brent and Angela, Brad and Annie and Brandon and Amy; seven great-grandchildren, Jacob, Travis, Larin, Hadon, Brice, Kye and Knox Wade, all of Ringling; brother, J.Q. Porter Jr., also of Ringling; Robert Earl’s children, Charles and Nona Wyche of Springdale, Ark., Jerry and Diane Wyche of Lone Grove, and Linelle Mallory of Bethany; grandchildren John David Wyche and Brandi Riggs and husband, Jason; great-grandchildren, Sophia and Nora Riggs; devoted caregivers, Annie Owens, Sheila Hicks and Carrie Bracken who not only cared for her but became family and friends; and numerous other family and friends.